Stylos is the blog of Jeff Riddle, a Reformed Baptist Pastor in North Garden, Virginia. The title "Stylos" is the Greek word for pillar. In 1 Timothy 3:15 Paul urges his readers to consider "how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar (stylos) and ground of the truth."

Monday, January 30, 2017

Over the weekend, I finished reading this collection of
essays by Engelsma and Hanko, retired professors at the Protestant Reformed
Theological School (Wyoming, Michigan) on the theme of a Reformed worldview.
The booklet was expanded from lectures given by the authors at a 2010
conference of the British Reformed Fellowship (BRF).

The chapters (and authors):

1.The
Reformed Worldview (Engelsma)

2.The
Organic Development of Sin (Hanko)

3.The
Abolition of Truth (Engelsma)

4.The
Reformed Believer and Money (Hanko)

5.The
Sexual Revolution (Engelsma)

6.Towards
a One-World Government (Hanko)

7.The
Unbreakable Scripture (Engelsma)

8.The
Call to Spiritual Cleansing (Hanko)

In these articles one finds many of the distinctive emphases
of the conservative PRC denomination (a group of Dutch Reformed churches that
separated from the mainstream Christian Reformed denomination in 1924 under the
leadership of Herman Hoeksema), including rejection of “common grace” (ch.
1), rejection of easy divorce and absolute ban on remarriage after divorce (ch. 5), and preference
for the King James Version (ch. 7). I was stuck by the eschatological
perspective, rejecting both optimistic post-millennialism and pre-millennialism
and anticipation of a Roman “one-world government,” with which I was less
familiar.

Each chapter is relatively brief, pious, well-written, and devotional. I found Hanko’s discussion of sin (ch. 2) and personal
holiness (ch. 8) to be especially intriguing.

Note: If you visit the BRF website (here), you can find
other books by the authors, which I assume have also come from past conferences,
including a free pdf of their book The
Five Points of Calvinism (look
here).

Proverbs
14:17 He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly: and a man of wicked devices is
hated.

Proverbs
14:29 He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty
of spirit exalteth folly.

Proverbs
15:18 A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth
strife.

Proverbs
16:32 He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth
his spirit than he that taketh a city.

We must
remember that anger in itself is not sin.
I had an ongoing debate about this with a pacifist friend in
college. There can be godly anger or
“righteous indignation” over an injustice or an insult to the Lord.

Psalm
7:11 says the Lord is angry with the wicked every day.

Nahum
1:2 says the Lord is “furious” and “he reserveth his wrath for his enemies.”

In Mark
3:5 we are told that as Jesus was tested in the synagogue to see if he would
heal a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, “and when we had looked round
about them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts.”

Remember
how he rebuked Peter and told him “Get thee behind me Satan” and how he drove
out the money changers from the temple. Jesus had a zeal for holiness and
obedience, shown in righteous indignation.

In the
Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 Jesus did not condemn anger but unjust anger.
He warned the man who become angry with his brother “without a cause” (v. 22)
and said this was a violation of the sixth commandment.

Paul
said, in Ephesians 4:26: “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down on
your anger.”

I like what Charles Bridges says
here. After doing what we’ve just done here
and saying that the Bible teaches that there can be godly anger, he adds, “And
yet it would be most dangerous to presume upon this rare purity, when in the
infinite majority of cases, it is the ebullition of pride, selfishness, and
folly” (Ecclesiastes, p. 147). Most of us do not get angry for the right
reasons; we get angry for the wrong reasons.
And we usually do not come slowly to anger. We rush hastily into anger.

We need to heed the wisdom of James:

James 1:19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to
hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

Let’s
move to the second half of v. 9: “for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.” The
verb for “rest” here can also mean “lodge” or “take up residence.” As destructive and harmful as sudden or hasty
anger is, much worse is anger that is welcomed for a long stay, harbored,
nurtured, fed, and kept alive in the bosom.
This is not what wise men do.
This is what fools do.

Bridges:
“At all events, if anger rushes in by some sudden power or at some unwary
moment, take care that it does not rest. It may pass through a wise man’s
heart. But the bosom of the fool is its home” (p. 148).

Friday, January 27, 2017

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient
in spirit is better than the proud in spirit (Ecclesiastes 7:8).

This verse addresses the dangers of
impatience during difficulties. The teaching starts: “Better is the end of a thing
than the beginning thereof” (v. 8a). The main exhortation here is for the
believer not to have a short-term view of any hardships he must face in this
life.

We must remember the account of
faithful Job. He went through terrible
distress, but Job 42:12 records, “So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job
more than the beginning.”

Sometimes we give up too soon. If we would just persevere we might see
blessing even in this life. Nevertheless, the believer must remain faithful
even if he does not see immediate blessing in this life. He must look at his life from the perspective
of eternity. To alter the last stanza of
“Amazing Grace”: “When we’ve been there ten thousand years …will we even
remember the things that seem so large and upsetting to us here and now?” Better is the end than the beginning!

In his Ecclesiastes commentary, Charles
Bridges observes:

The ordinary trials of the Christian life are grievous in the beginning;
but fruitful in the end. Therefore, whatever be the trial of faith, never
despond (p. 142).

God, who in mercy and wisdom governs the world, would never have suffered
so many sadnesses, and especially to the most virtuous and wisest men, but that
he intends they should be the seminary of comfort, the nursery of virtue, the
exercise of wisdom, the trial of patience, the venturing for a crown, and the
gate of glory (p. 143).

The corresponding and completing part
of v. 8: “and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit” (v.
8b). Well has it been said that patience is a virtue. Paul called it a fruit of
the spirit (see “longsuffering” in Gal 5:22-23).

Notice that the opposite of patience
is pride. Pride is the father of
impatience. Pride says: If I were in
charge things would be better. If God would just do things the way I want, all
would work out well.

More gleaning from Bridges (pp.
144-145):

Patience is the child of faith.

Let the Lord take his own course, as certainly he will. But trust him for
the end in his own time and way.

Beware of fretfulness in walking through the rough and thorny path.

Never forget that we are most incompetent judges of his purposes.

….hastily to give up good purposes because of difficulties—would prove us
to be poor novices in the Christian life. Proud self-confidence expects to
carry all before us, and after repeated failures sinks down in despondency. The
patient in spirit is content—if it must be so—with feeble beginnings, poor
success, and many repulses.

We can apply this to so many
things. We can apply it to our spiritual
life. When we consider our own personal spiritual growth and maturity we might
wonder why we are not making better progress.
We can apply it to how we think of others. If we expect the Lord to be
patient with us, why can we not be patient with others? We can apply it corporately to our
church. And we can apply it to the
church’s influence in our culture. We
want more, but we must have a spirit of patience!

Thursday, January 26, 2017

I have two articles and two book reviews that appear in the
January 2017 issue of the Puritan Reformed
Journal (Vol. 9, No. 1). You can order this issue of the journal here.

I just posted the “Erasmus Anecdotes” article to academia.edu
(find it here).
In the article I question the reliability of two frequently told scholarly
anecdotes related to Erasmus’ Novum
Instrumentum: (1) the “rush to print” anecdote; and (2) the “rash wager”
anecdote [related to the inclusion of the Comma Johanneum in the third edition].
I also point out that these anecdotes began to circulate during the nineteenth
century in order to undermine and diminish the authority of the Textus Receptus.

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

We have been consecutively reading a chapter from the book of
Exodus in each Lord’s Day afternoon worship service at CRBC. Last Sunday we read Exodus 12, the record of
the establishment of the Passover. It was particularly meaningful to hear that
chapter given that we also participated in the Lord’s Supper, as is our usual
practice, during that afternoon service.

I was especially struck by that part of the reading which might
be called “the fencing” of the Passover table:

Exodus 12:43 And theLordsaid unto Moses and Aaron, This is the
ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof: 44 But every man's servant that is bought
for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof.
45 A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof.
46 In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth
ought of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone
thereof. 47 All the congregation of Israel shall
keep it. 48 And when a stranger shall sojourn
with thee, and will keep the passover to theLord, let
all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he
shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat
thereof.

The “stranger” was
forbidden from partaking of the meal, until and unless he had submitted to the
ordinance of circumcision.

This made me consider
points of continuity with the Lord’s Supper in the New Covenant. Paul sets the proper context for the
observance of the Lord’s Supper when he says, “when ye come together in the church”
(1 Corinthians 11:18). It is limited to those who are part of the visible
church. The church is necessarily
overseen by its officers. As “strangers”
were excluded from the Passover, so non-Christians are excluded from the Lord’s
Supper. The litmus test for participation in the Passover was submission to the
ordinance of circumcision, the outward and visible sign of the covenant in the
Old Testament. The litmus test for
participation in the Lord’s Supper is submission to baptism, the outward and visible
sign of the covenant in the New Testament. See Colossians 2:11-12 where baptism
is described as “the circumcision made without hands.”

The passage begins, “Surely
oppression maketh a wise man mad…” (Ecclesiastes 7:7a). “Mad” here does not mean angry but mentally distressed. So, the
NKJV renders it, “Surely oppression destroys a wise man’s reason.” Solomon here consoles the believer on the
experience of despair in the face of oppression. The old adage states: The
best of men are men at best. Even the
wisest and the most godly of men, placed in circumstances of intense pressure
and oppression, can sometimes act in unreasonable ways.

Bridges says of oppression: “More
than once has it thrown the man of God off his sober balance, and hurried him
into a state nearly allied to madness” (Ecclesiastes,
p. 141).

Perhaps Solomon knew the experience
of his father David in the days of his flight from Saul when he “feigned”
madness among the Philistines (1 Samuel 21:10-15; cf. Psalm 34).

We can perhaps illustrate Solomon’s
point by looking at the life of Bill Wallace.
His story is told in a book by Jesse Fletcher called Bill Wallace of China (Broadman, 1963).

As a 17 year old Christian teenager in Knoxville, Tennessee, Wallace committed himself to becoming a missionary. In 1935, after completing medical school and
a residency in surgery, he fulfilled that commitment by going to China as a
medical missionary. He was there during
the second World War, surviving Japanese bombings, and he made the decision to stay at his
post when the communists took over the country.
When asked why he had chosen to stay by a friend, he used a Chinese
expression, saying “I am just one piece of man,” meaning, “I’m not anyone
important" (Fletcher, p. 124).

Few knew at that time what was to
come. Wallace was eventually arrested
under the false charge of being an American spy. To discredit him a further series of false,
malicious, and outrageous charges were brought against him. We might like to think that oppression comes against
godly men merely for their righteousness, but often the godly are assailed
through false charges. Fletcher describes what happened: “A placard with
obscene and derisive accusations and charges were placed over him; his hands
were tied behind his back” and he was marched through the streets of the city
(p. 147). While doing so he was thrown to the ground by a guard, his hand was
broken, and he received no treatment for it.
He was placed in a prison cell, deprived of sleep, and awakened
throughout the night to be taken for interrogation. Fletcher: “Their accusations, viciously and
vehemently proclaimed, bewildered and upset him. They were shouted over and
again, growing in intensity, growing in degradation, allowing for no defense”
(p. 148).

In the days that followed, Wallace began to collapse
under the strain, battling for his very sanity.
Other prisoners heard him crying out in agony and repeating Bible verses
to prepare for his next interrogation. Fletcher: “Delirium, crying, and blank
periods came, but he fought on—clinging to his faith” (p. 149).

Unable to gain the confession they
sought, one night his guards came to his cell and repeatedly stabbed Wallace
with sharp bamboo poles, through the cell bars, until he lost consciousness. That night, February 10, 1951 Wallace went to
be with the Lord. His captors claimed
that he had hung himself. A medical colleague who saw his body said there were
no signs of hanging, but only the abuse of his battered body.

We have not faced that kind of
oppression in our lives, but we know that hardships and difficulties of a much
lesser degree can wear us down both physically and mentally. The saints are not immune to suffering. In fact, Scripture teaches exactly the
opposite:

2 Timothy 3:12 Yea, and all that will
live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

The health and wealth gospel is not
compatible with the testimony of Bill Wallace or the teaching of Qoheleth. Even a wise and godly man can be spiritually
stricken by oppression and it might drive him to act irrationally. Still, he has the Lord’s promise that he will
not be tempted beyond what he is able, but the Lord “will with the temptation
also make a way of escape,” that he may be able to bear it (1 Corinthians
10:13).

Monday, January 23, 2017

Solomon adds in Ecclesiastes 7:1b:: “and the day of death [is
better] than the day of one’s birth.”

That seems like a pretty dark and pessimistic thing to
say. Can you imagine getting a Hallmark
card with that cheery line on your birthday?

I have to think that Solomon is asking us to imagine what existence
would be like apart from Christ. If
there were no God, if life was just sound and fury signifying nothing, then all
would be vanity. All our labor, all our
worry, all our striving, all our achievements, and even all our pleasure, would
be a chasing after the wind.

Look back to Ecclesiastes 6:3-5 where he describes the man who tries to make his life meaningful by having a large
family and living a long life, apart from true godliness, and concludes it
would be better for him if he had died stillborn!

Jesus says of the one who would betray the Son of Man
(Judas Iscariot): “it had been good for that man if he had not been born” (Matt
26:24).

For the unregenerate man, at least on the day that he dies,
he stops piling up his offenses and transgressions against a holy and righteous
God.

It is in the face of this meaninglessness of life, this
nihilism of existence, which has no purpose, which is empty apart from Christ,
that Solomon will encourage his hearers to exit the house of mirth and enter
the house of mourning (see v. 2), where sober reckoning on the real meaning of
life takes place.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Ecclesiastes 7 begins: “A good name is better than precious ointment” (v. 1a).

This parallels Proverbs 22:1 which similarly reads: “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and
loving favour rather than silver and gold.”

I remember as a child misunderstanding that verse and
thinking it meant it was to your advantage literally to have a meaningful name,
perhaps a Biblical name. Of course, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about your reputation.

John D. Currid gets it right:

To have a good name means that a
person is considered a noble, courageous person of integrity. He is one with an
upright character. This is worth much more than ‘precious ointment’ or
expensive perfume. A good reputation is more abiding than material riches (Ecclesiastes, p.
90).

In 1 Timothy 3:7 Paul says that an elder must have “a good
report of them which are without.” He said this knowing that sometimes elders
are wrongly maligned. Paul himself was wrongly
accused by his opponents of being greedy, licentious, and contentious. Just
look at how he so frequently defends his ministry in his letters or in his speech to the
Ephesian elders in Acts 20 (cf., for example, Acts 20:33 when he says, “I have coveted no
man’s silver, or gold, or apparel”).

This also reminds us that if we would have a good name, we must not sully the name of another.

Our Puritan forebears trace the root of this moral concern to
the ninth commandment: Thou shalt not
bear false witness. So, the catechism
teaches: “The ninth commandment requires the maintaining and promoting of truth
between man and man, and of our own, and our neighbor’s good name, especially
in witness-bearing.”

We should
prize our own good name (though knowing it might be unjustly maligned for the sake of Christ)
and also the good name of our neighbor, especially if he is also a Christian
brother. For a good name is better than precious ointment.

Friday, January 20, 2017

Ecclesiastes 7:4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning;
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. 5 It is better to hear the rebuke of
the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools. 6 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of
the fool: this also is vanity.

The great contrast in the wisdom
literature is between the wise man and the foolish man. Jesus taught about the wise man who built his
house on the rock and the foolish man who built on the sand (Matthew 7). Here the wise man is the one whose heart (the
seat of his affections) is in the house of mourning (seriousness, sobriety).
And the fool is he whose heart is in the house of mirth (frivolity,
superficiality).

Another, yet related, dimension
is added in v. 5: “It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man
to hear the song of fools.”

This is also a stock teaching in
the wisdom literature. Do not resist an
admonition that comes from the wise. But receive it and profit from it.

Psalm
141:5 Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove
me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my
prayer also shall be in their calamities.

Proverbs
25:12 As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise
reprover upon an obedient ear.

Proverbs
27:5 Open rebuke is better than secret love. 6 Faithful are the wounds
of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

Think of David when
Nathan the prophet confronted him and said, “Thou art the man!” (2 Sam
12:7). Did David run from Nathan? Did he accuse him of treachery? Did he order his execution? Did David call for his sycophants to soothe
his conscience? Did he call for musicians and arrange a party? Did he call for comedians to lighten his
mood? No, he acknowledged that Nathan had brought him the Word of God. And he
repented of his sin (see Psalm 51).

The last verse calls to
mind a vivid analogy. The “song of
fools” (v. 5) or the foolish laughter of those who dull their meaningless life
through partying and laughing are like crackling thorns under a pot on a fire
(v. 6a).

His summary for it all? “This
also is vanity” (v. 6b).

Here is a great irony:
Unregenerate men are headed for eternal destruction, but while here, in
this life, they most often ignore their plight by escaping to the house of
mirth. Meanwhile, regenerate and godly
men, who are headed for the New Jerusalem, while in this life, will frequently
go to the house of mourning, in sorrow for their sins and habitual repentance.

May the Lord
make us wise, sending us out of the house of mirth and into the house of
mourning, so that we might dwell in his house forever.

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

The Orthodox Study
Bible (Thomas
Nelson, 1993) presents commentary on the NT and the Psalms, prepared by the
Academic Community of St. Athanasius Orthodox Academy of Santa Barbara,
California. The text for the NT is from the New King James Version. The traditional ending of Mark is included as
the authoritative, un-bracketed text. In
the commentary notes, there is the following note at Mark 16:9-20:

Some manuscripts do not include this
longer ending. Later traditions testify to several endings. The Church, however,
has always regarded this ending as canonical and inspired (p. 129).

The Orthodox view on the text of Scripture is rarely
considered by liberal and evangelical Protestants who have embraced the modern
critical text and translations based upon it.
The Orthodox have not embraced the modern critical text of the NT (the Orthodox view of the OT is another matter). What is more, they hold not just to the Majority Text, as evident with the
ending of Mark, but to the Textus
Receptus.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

I enjoyed listening to this lecture by Larry Hurtado, emeritus professor of NT at the University of Edinburgh, on the distinctiveness of early Christianity in the Roman world. The lecture was given at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston, Texas on September 10, 2016. I liked his description of the Parthenon as an "ecumenical" temple and his stress on the exclusivity (intolerance) of early Christians with regard to their refusal to worship false gods, resulting in them being labelled as "atheists." Worth hearing.

Monday, January 16, 2017

I listened today to the recently posted lecture by Dr.
Russell T. Fuller, OT Professor at Southern Baptist Seminary, on “John Owen and
the Traditional Protestant View of the OT" (see video above). The lecture was given at the 2016 Andrew Fuller Conference on the theme,
“The Diversity of Dissent.”

Fuller presents a compelling defense of the Hebrew Masoretic
tradition as the authoritative text of the Old Testament, over against modern,
reconstructionist text critical approaches, as represented in many modern
liberal and also evangelical translations of the OT. And he does so on distinctly
confessional grounds!

Here are some notes:

Fuller begins with a review of the “forgotten controversy” of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries over the antiquity of the vowel points
and accents of the Hebrew Bible.

Traditional Jews and Protestant held to the antiquity of the
vowel points and accents, tracing them back to Moses and Ezra. The controversy began with the rejection of
the antiquity of the vowel points and accents by the Jewish scholar Elias
Levita and (surprisingly) the Protestant scholar Louis Cappel (Latin: Capellus).
This was seized upon by Catholics who argued that the OT text was
corrupted and proper interpretation only came through the Vulgate and the RC
magisterium. Johannes Buxtorf (the elder) and his son Johannes Buxtorf (the
younger) defended the traditional Protestant view. This controversy re-emerged in the seventeenth
century with Brian Walton’s Polyglott offering
the same challenges and John Owen defending the traditional Protestant view.

Fuller rightly points out that the traditional Protestant view “has
been discarded completely by the critical scholars and partly by evangelical
scholars.”

While conceding that Owen and his colleagues “stumbled” in
some details, he argues that they were correct on three core issues: (1) the
preservation of Scripture; (2) the verbal inspiration of Scripture: and (3) the
dangers of radical text criticism to Scripture.

The “final statement” of these confessional views were
expressed in the Helvetic Consensus Formula (1675) and this view prevailed for
c. 50-100 years. The Baptist pastor John
Gill, the Scottish theologian James Robertson of Edinburgh, and the German
scholar Oluf Gerhard Tychsen represented a “rear-guard” defense of these views,
but modernism eventually prevailed. The Hebrew text of the OT is now seen as corrupted,
obscure, and outdated.

Fuller concludes: “We are all Capellian now.”

Nevertheless, he argues that the defenders of the traditional
Protestant view were right on the core issues:

On preservation, he argues that the Masoretic Text of
the Hebrew Bible should be considered the standard for the OT. It has been preserved in the Aleppo Codex and
the Leningrad Codex.

The antiquity and authority of the MT has been proven by various
evidences [Babylonian Talmud and rabbinic literature, versions (like the
Vulgate), Masada texts, Qumran texts (Isaiah scroll), LXX revisions, and even
NT usage].

So, Fuller says, “The MT is the OT.”

To traditional Protestants the “original autographs” and the
scriptures of their day were the same.

On verbal inspiration, he notes that the traditional
Protestants stressed the inspiration not only of Biblical ideas but of the very
words of Scripture.

On the vowels and accents, he notes the traditional
Protestants were right to say that this included the vowels and accents, “the
power of the points,” whether in written form or as preserved in oral tradition
as the proper pronunciation.

The Masoretic tradition (consonants, vowels, and accents) are
the “Lydian stone” of the OT against which all versions must be evaluated.

On radical text
criticism, Fuller
bemoans departures from the Masoretic Text in modern translations of the OT, which
give weight to versions like the LXX, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Pentateuch, and
even to conjectural emendations.

Sadly, this is true not just of liberal translations (RSV,
NRSV, NEB) but also of evangelical translations (ESV, NIV, NLT).

He cites a study that notes variations in the ESV from the MT
of the OT:

277 times it follows the LXX;

18 times the Dead Sea Scrolls;

7 times the Samaritan Pentateuch;

26 times it amends with NO mss.
support.

And this is just based on the consonantal text. If vowel and accent changes were included
variants would be in the hundreds!

He sums up (c. 37:15 mark): “Liberals and evangelicals create
their own text. Each translation
committee creates its own magisterium.
This is what Owen and others foresaw and warned against.”

Though Owen and his allies erred in some details, they were
right of the core issues: preservation,
verbal inspiration, and the dangers of radical text criticism.

JTR Evaluation:

I highly commend this lecture. Fuller has hit the nail on the proverbial head
with regard to the theological issues involved in text criticism of the OT and
offers a compelling rationale for defense of the “traditional Protestant” use
of the Masoretic Text as the text of
the OT.

If you are making use of a modern translation of the Bible
(like the ESV) which departs from the Masoretic text, you should pay especially
close attention to Fuller’s argument.

I have one question/suggestion: For the core issues, Why not follow the order
inspiration, preservation, translation (as in Westminster I.8), rather than
preservation, inspiration, translation?

And I have one significant
disagreement. It has to do with the only reference in the
lecture to NT text criticism, and it goes by so quickly it might easily be
overlooked. At the 17:40 mark, Fuller
says,

For the NT, Vaticanus, with obvious
copyist errors noted, virtually reproduces the NT as given by the apostles. The
same could be said for other famous uncial and papyri manuscripts.

This appears to me to be an inconsistency. If Fuller prefers the traditional Protestant
text for the OT why does he not also prefer the traditional Protestant text of
the NT, namely, the Textus Receptus,
or, at the very least, the Majority Text? When Owen and his contemporaries thought
of the “autograph” they thought of the text of their day. This was not, however, just the MT of the OT,
but also the TR of the NT!

Part of his argument here is for the use of extant texts (the
Aleppo and Leningrad Codices), over eclectic texts. But why not the TR as the standard printed
text of Protestant consensus?

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Pastor Poh Boon Sing of Malaysia has created a new tract (in English) for the Chinese lunar New Year (the year of the rooster) which begins January 28. He writes:

Dear Brethren & Friends,

The Lunar New Year, celebrated by those with chopsticks-culture (China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, and other overseas Chinese) falls on 28 January. The celebration lasts 15 days. The eve of the new year, on 27 January, is when family members from far and near gather for the reunion dinner. Students and those working abroad who are unable to return to their family would normally have their own gatherings to celebrate. Here is where churches can forge friendship with them by joining their functions or inviting the lonely ones home.

The tract for this year is attached. One version of the tract is on an A-4 page. The foldable version may be printed front and back of an A-4 page and cut in half. It would be good to print on bright red paper as that is the auspicious colour for the Lunar New Year.

I have been unable to upload it to the Gospel Highway website as the host-server is still under repair after severe attacks from hackers.

Friday, January 13, 2017

Paragraph 8. The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the
native language of the people of God of old),14and the New Testament in Greek (which
at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations),
being immediately inspired by God, and by His singular care and providence kept
pure in all ages, are therefore authentic; so as in all controversies of
religion, the church is finally to appeal to them.15But because these original tongues are not
known to all the people of God, who have a right unto, and interest in the
Scriptures, and are commanded in the fear of God to read,16and
search them,17therefore they are to be translated
into the vulgar language of every nation unto which they come,18that
the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship Him in an
acceptable manner, and through patience and comfort of the Scriptures may have
hope.19

In this lesson we focus especially on the issue of translation.
Herein, I see three key affirmations:

1. The Christian has a right to and
an interest in Scripture:

I am struck by the statement here that every believer has “a
right unto and interest in the Scriptures.”
One of the privileges and benefits given to each Christian is the right
to read a faithful translation of the Bible in a language he can understand.

This is necessary, because we are commanded to read Scripture. The proof text given is Acts 15:15 where James
stands before the apostles and suggests that Peter’s testimony before them is
affirmed by Scripture: “And to this agree the words of the prophets….”

Another prooftext recalls the command of Jesus in John 5:39: “Search
the Scriptures … and they are they which testify of me.” The Christian must be able to obey the
command of Christ.

Translation was a flashpoint of controversy during the
Reformation, as the Roman Catholic Church resisted the translation of the Bible
into the “vulgar languages” of the people.
The Reformation gave the Bible back to God’s people, and, thus, restored
their right to it.

2.It is proper and fitting to translate the Bible:

Several of the proof texts which offer the Biblical
justification for this statement are taken from 1 Corinthians 14. The original context regards worship in
Corinth. Paul rebukes persons who were
speaking in languages that no one could understand. He states: “So likewise ye, except ye utter
by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is
spoken? For ye shall speak into the air” (1 Cor 14:9). The principle is this: Men ought to be able to hear from God in a
language they can understand.

This has been the Christian view from the beginning. The Christian Scriptures have been translated
into the language of the people from the earliest days. Early translations of the Bible were made
into Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Gothic, Ethiopic, and other languages,
long before English even existed as a language.

In Islam you are required to learn Arabic to read the Koran, adherents
memorize and recite in mandated daily prayer by rote memory Koranic verses they
do not understand, but in Christianity the Word comes to you in your heart
language.

As the confession notes, anytime that Christian missionaries
enter into a field where Christ is not known, the first task they should
undertake is the faithful translation of the Bible. This is what Judson did when he went to Burma
(Myanmar), and his translation is still being used today. The Bible in a
faithful translation is a missionary to you.

3. The Bible in a faithful
translation provides real benefits to believers:

The
Bible is translated, “that the Word of
God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship Him in an acceptable manner,
and through patience and comfort of the Scriptures may have hope.”

A
prooftext cited is Colossians 3:16: “Let
the word of Christ dwell in you richly….”

Notice
the primary stress given on worship.
Christians need the Bible so that they can know how to worship God
aright.

Uncited,
though clearly echoed is Romans 15:4: “For whatsoever things were written
aforetime were written for our learning, that we through the patience and
comfort of the scriptures might have hope.”

Having
a faithful Bible you can read and understand satisfies and comforts the
Christian’s soul.